Chapter 35: Interference Final: Glory of the Comet

"It was as the prophecy predicted...The boy has all seven stones..." In the deep reaches of a fog covered forest, Cackletta is seen by herself, speaking of tales long since buried in the ravages of time. "Mistress, where are you going?" The witch's colleague Fawful asks. "Acting out of duty, the brave guards of the Overlord's will shall sacrifice themselves to ensure that evil does not bring about Armageddon upon all living things..." As she speaks this strange sentence, the witch uses her wrinkly old hands to pull a purple hood over her head. "Mistress, shall I speak to the fiends of mysterious origin and motives?" "Yes. My entire plan rests on acquiring the Overlord's power, if I fail, then they need to be ready to prepare plan B..." "So you shall be going to that place?" "Yes...The Overlord thinks he hid his precious Origin Temple well...A grave error that will cost him dearly..." After finishing their conversation, Fawful nods his head and disappears into the fog. Cackletta herself continues to press onward through the forest, heading towards the shadow of a massive temple that lies in the distance.

Back at Toad Town, those who had fallen in the battle with Giga Bowser are currently seen resting on top of separate hospital beds. Mallow and Driad have chosen to stay behind in order to keep an eye on them. Alpha has to explain to the hospital crew that he is unharmed, despite the presence of a few burn marks on his body from being electrocuted earlier on. Retreating into his copter, the Commander begins to fix any broken parts on his arms. Plenty of wires have been singed, but Alpha came prepared for such a situation to happen and pulls some spare wires out from within a cabinet on the wall. As he works, one could tell that something was greatly bothering him. "...I need to figure out the truth from him tonight..." He whispers to himself. "Need to figure out what now?" Looking over his shoulder, he finds Geno standing right outside of his copter. "Well now, you sure recovered quickly..." Signaling him to come in by waving his right hand, Geno jumps into the copter and begins to approach the workbench that Alpha is working at. "This vessel I currently inhabit is blessed by the Star Spirit's, allowing me to recover at a much faster pace than most creatures in this world."

Alpha smirks, letting a little "Ha..." slip out of his mouth upon hearing the Star Herald's explanation. "Honestly, that would've been my first guess..." Continuing to fuse some wires together, Geno leans over the Commander's shoulder to watch him work. "So, you got something to say to me? You must have some reason for being here right now." He asks. "As a matter of fact, I do." Geno moves his head away from Alpha's shoulder, taps him on it and turns around. As he begins to walk out of the copter, Alpha turns his chair around and with a flick of the arm all of his open compartments close instantly. Jumping off the chair to follow the Star Herald, he finds him staring up at the bright, starlit sky above. "Hmph, I must admit the night sky looks absolutely exhilarating to gaze at right now...Hmm?"

The Commander's eye focuses on a single, solitary star in the sky which seems to be slowly fading out, the light surrounding it becoming dimmer with each passing second. "Well, it seems as though one has died out...A tragic moment, but it had stayed in the reaches of space for millions of years anyways, so-" "Ten." Geno interrupts. Lowering his head and raising an eyebrow in confusion, Alpha wonders why the Star Herald said that one number. "Ten stars have faded completely from the night sky during the last twenty-seven minutes alone." Closing his eyes and folding his head into his chest, the doll continues to list off more info about the stars. "Fifty-six more stars are beginning to fade away right now..." "What is the meaning of this madness? Do the Star Spirits know that this is going on right now?" In anger, Alpha slams his fist into the wall of his copter, denting it in the process.

"I'm sorry..." Geno regretfully says. "But I am unable to contact them at this time...They've blocked out all communications..." "What?" The Commander states in a flat tone. "They aren't even letting their own herald talk to them?" "...I don't understand myself..." The doll's attempts to pity himself do not fool Alpha, who realizes that the doll is keeping some secrets from not just himself, but the rest of the group as well. "Geno, cut it out." He states bluntly. Geno opens his eyes and lifts his head up, looking over his shoulder to watch as Alpha jumps off of the side of the copter. Landing gently on the ground, the back of his trenchcoat rises up into the air slightly, before quickly lowering itself soon after. "You higher beings always think that just because you have a position of power, means that you can keep hiding the truth away from the rest of us so-called 'Mortals'" Geno turns around, and prepares for a possible fight against the Commander by raising his arms up in front of his chest and turning them into miniature cannons. Surprisingly though, Alpha raises his right hand not to summon a weapon, but to place it down onto the doll's left shoulder. As Geno's guns are pressed against Alpha's skin, the herald begins to feel nervous, unable to read what the Commander's next move could possibly be. "Geno, if the Star Spirit's know some things about the Overlord and the things he did on this planet, then would it be possible for you to tell me, my friend?" This came as quite a surprise to the doll. He thought that Alpha would try and force the answer out of him through brute force. But instead, he took a polite approach and asked him in a very delicate tone of voice. Taking a few moments to think of a way to respond to the question, Geno decides that in a situation such as this one, he should no longer keep the truth hidden from his friends. Returning his arms to their normal state and placing them by his sides, Geno gets ready to spill everything he knows. "Very well Alpha..." After he takes a deep breath and lets out a powerful sigh from his mouth, the Commander lets go of Geno's shoulder and takes a couple steps back to let him speak. Raising his head up to look at the Commander straight in the eye, Geno crosses his arms and begins to explain everything he knew...

Back inside of the hospital, Driad sits on a single bar stool that rests besides Gemini's bed. With his hands resting on his lap, the flower is whistling Alex's favorite Mozart tune. Curious to see how Mallow is faring, he turns his head to the left, only to find that the cloud prince is resting his head down on top of the same bed where Luigi is currently resting at. The feeling of tranquility that resides in the room at this moment causes a little smile to appear on the flower's face. Seeing the sheets ruffling from the corner of his eye, Driad turns his attention towards Gemini, where he sees the Koopa waking up from his deep sleep. His first attempt to view his surroundings ends immediately once his pupils make contact with the bright lights on the ceiling. To get around this, Gemini repeatedly blinks his eyelids until his eyes themselves adjust to the lights. Then he is able to raise his head up off the pillow that it was resting on and start taking a look around. The first thing he notices is Driad sitting down on a chair while at him with a pleased expression on his face. "Ugh..." He moans. "How long was I out for Driad?"

"Four hours." Driad quickly responds. "...How is everyone else doing?" Gemini says, his voice sounding tired and weak due to just waking up. "Well, after defeating Bowser we came back to Toad Town to get all of you guys here to recover. Alpha went off to repair his arms, Geno has left already, Mario went to visit Peach at her castle, and you can tell how Mallow and Luigi are doing if you just look to your right." As he speaks the last part of his sentence, he lifts one of his arms up to point towards the two. Gemini slowly turns his head, and upon seeing how relaxed the both of them look he lets a little laugh out. "And Alex?" Driad shrugs his shoulders. "Don't know myself." The flower states in an honest tone. "All I know is that Mario snuck the stones he had into his pants pockets before he left." "I see..." Gemini closes his eyelids and nods his head. He turns around and lies back down onto the pillow, resting his arms behind his head and staring up towards the ceiling. "I'm glad you are still awake, Driad. I need to talk to you about a certain battle..."

Tilting his head to the right, Driad wonders what Gemini is going to ask him about. "Oh?" Is all he says, a curious tone slipping from his lips. "Which battle is on your mind?" "The one where you and Alex fought against that beast outside the Frozen Palace..." Driad tightly grasps onto his legs upon hearing those words. "Don't tell me he found out..." He thinks to himself. He breathes in slowly and quietly through his nostrils. "No, keep yourself together Driad...If you do anything suspicious he'll figure you out immediately." "Alright, what about that battle Gemini?" Gemini reaches into his shell and pulls out a small wooden splinter from within. "See this? I found this after the battle ended." The Crayzee Dayzee swiftly recognized the splinter, but kept himself quiet to avoid raising Gemini's suspicions. "I found it lodged inside of the scar on the beast's eye...Now, Alex used the stone's powers later on against the revived Crystal King, so he clearly wasn't responsible for the beast's defeat. You, on the other hand, the creation of wood would be easy for you to accomplish, so I assume that it was you that defeated the guardian, correct?"

"Yes." Driad honestly replies in an instant. Gemini closes his eyelids slightly, staring at the splinter that is grasped in between his fingers. "Well, I thank you for your honest response...But that just makes me more concerned about the results of that battle." Releasing his grip on the splinter, the Koopa lets it fall right down onto his palm, where he then closes his hand around it. "You don't strike me as the kind who would kill someone...Or rather, not the kind of person who would kill someone as violently as you did to that guardian." Driad gulps. Gemini knew too much...But he wasn't ready to call it quits yet. "Aren't you getting a little ahead of yourself there Gemini? Sure you found a splinter in the guardian's eye, but that doesn't mean much. Do you have any proof that I created it?" Driad figured that that would be enough to get Gemini to stop his pursuit, but he was unaware of just how prepared the Koopa was for this debate.

"Oh? My sound logic was not good enough for you? Very well, then let me tell you this. I ran the splinter through a DNA Analyzer, and guess what?" Driad's body starts creating dew, due to intense feeling of nervousness that his body is now experiencing. "It matched yo-" "OK! I ADMIT IT!" Driad says out loud, his voice breaking up as he talks. Tears begin to appear in the flower's eyes and slowly trickle down his cheeks. Using his vines to cover his face in shame, the flower begins to moan quietly to himself. Gemini, now feeling guilty over pushing Driad as far as he did, tosses the splinter off to the side of the bed and lifts his body up off the mattress in order to comfort the crying flower. "I did it...I killed the guardian in cold blood...I...I remembered bits of my past, and the next thing I know...I transformed into this wolf like creature...and..and in a fit of anger...I...I'm a murderer…I've probably killed so many innocent people throughout my life…I…I'm so sorry Gemini, I'm so, so sorry!" Driad continues to cry. Not even Gemini placing one of his hands on his right shoulder in an attempt to comfort him was enough to stop him. It was not until he started talking that the Crayzee Dayzee quiets down to hear him out.

"I know how you feel Driad. You were granted new powers, but at the time you were emotionally unstable, blinded only by rage. With your newfound powers, you took your rage out on the closest person in sight, not thinking about how your actions would affect those around you. It is only until someone close to you gets hurt, either emotionally or physically, that you stop your rampage..." Ending his session of sorrow, Driad moves his hands away from his eyes. "Point is, you know why you did what you did, correct? Now it's up to you to decide...Are you going to live in fear of your new powers, or are you going to learn to control and use them for the good of the world?" "Gemini...You really do understand...But why?" The Koopa lifts one hand up and creates a few electric sparks in the palm. "You think I was just given these powers and instantly I was able to master them? I've spent six years trying to get used to these powers of mine, and I still know that there is plenty more for me to learn about them." Gemini dispels the sparks and places his hand down on his lap. A frown slowly grows on his face, as he begins to feel a bit down. "Besides...Before I joined the M.S.I., I was a simple Koopa that lived in Koopa Village...When I first got my powers, I hurt a few of the folk that lived there. It was an accident, but all the same I still felt guilty about what happened. After that day, I vowed that I would not return there until I was able to fully accept these powers that had been cursed upon me..."

"So that scarf on your arm…Is it a memento given to you by a friend that you knew there?" Driad points one hand towards the red scarf wrapped around Gemini's left arm. Gazing over to look at it, the Koopa falls silent for a few seconds. "...I'd rather not talk about it." He replies in a somber tone "That's fine by me, just thought I would ask." Driad now seems to be in a much better mood than he was a few moments ago. Gemini stops moping around and takes a look at the nearby clock. "1:03 AM? Since we probably got about seven hours until we will depart for the final temple, how about you and I head into the nearby woods and spar for a bit?" Flinging the sheets off from on top of his bed, the Lieutenant eagerly jumps out of the bed and stretches his arms out to get his muscles working again. "Are you certain about this? Shouldn't you be resting?" Driad's words of concern simply fly over Gemini's head. "I'm alright, don't worry about it. We don't have much time, so I just want to make sure that you get used to your new powers before our time is up." "Alright then!" Driad, with a determined look on his face, jumps off of his chair and head around the bed to join Gemini as he walks out of the room. On their way down the hall, they meet Alpha, who is walking towards the back of the hospital. "Where are you going at this hour Lieutenant?" The Commander asks. "Me and Driad are going to do some late night sparring. Want to join in?" Alpha shakes his head. Understanding his feelings on the matter, Gemini and Driad continue on their way, leaving Alpha to continue his trip towards the room where Alex is currently resting at...

Inside Peach's Castle, we find the Princess standing by herself near her destroyed throne. As she watches the Toads work from over her shoulder, she feels relieved to be back home. "The Castle was damaged immensely when Bowser invaded...It's been through worse though, I suppose." Turning her head back around, a blue silhouette appears right before Peach's eyes. Dressed in royal clothes like Peach herself, the person represented in this silhouette carries around a small wand with a star on the tip. "It's been a while since you last called." The silhouette says in a peaceful voice. "I was afraid something may have happened to you and the planet." "No, I was just kidnapped by Bowser. Nothing too threatening at all about that." "I see." The person calmly responds. "Anyways...You have felt it too, haven't you? Now that all seven stones have been collected, that feeling of impending doom..." "Yes. I have been feeling it for some time now. I am currently on my way to the planet..." "Is everything going to be ok?" "That is something not even I can predict..." The silhouette vanishes instantly, leaving Peach to be concerned about the planet's future...

After visiting the castle, Mario went over to professor E. Gadd's lab to find out about the final temple's location. There the plumber hands the iGadd over to the professor, but instead of inputting the device into his computer, E. Gadd merely lays it down on one of his cleared off tables. "You won't be needing that anymore." He says. Confused, Mario takes off his hat and scratches the top of his head with his other hand. "What do you mean by that?" "Well, from what I understand, the final temple where the remnants of the Overlord's power resides is protected by a barrier of sorts meant to keep others from entering. Should they attempt to enter, they will only end up coming out on the other side of where they entered at. Not only that, but the barrier makes the temple appear to be invisible in the first place." E. Gadd turns around and begins walking towards the Stargadd. "So how are we supposed to get inside?" "The tablet gives a specific set of coordinates that would allow one to teleport inside of the barrier. I just need to input them into the Stargadd and..." The Professor thus begins to type away at the control panel, mainly pressing down on the number buttons on there.

Upon entering all the info correctly the portal activates right before Mario's eyes. Backing away from the it, E. Gadd wipes some sweat from his brow and heads back to where the plumber is standing at. "Tomorrow, when you and your friends have all gathered here, you can use this portal to head to the final temple." Mario rubs his chin, something clearly on his mind about the final temple. "Do you know what we should expect to find at this temple?" The professor merely shakes his head back and forth, unable to truthfully answer Mario's important question. "The tablet only stated the location, nothing more, nothing less." "So, we shall pretty much be going in completely unprepared for any traps and/or enemies, correct?" "From the sounds of things, yes." E. Gadd rears his head back and lets out one of his signature laughs. "Ohohohohoho, but you and your friends should be able to handle anything that comes your way." Mario looks off towards the stairs, thinking about someone in particular in his group. "There's only one in our group that I am really worried about..." The plumber says quietly...

Back inside Alpha's copter, we find the Commander standing by himself. In front of him sits Alex, who is currently strapped into a chair with wires taped onto his knees and shoulders. "Wake up, Alex Whiter." Snapping his metallic fingers together creates a loud enough sound that forces the boy to instantly open his resting eyelids. "Huh? Wha-" Wildly swinging his head back and forth, Alex realizes that he is not only inside Alpha's copter for some reason, but he finds that he has been strapped down to a chair. He neither feels nor sees the wires attached to his body though. "What is the meaning of this Alpha?" Alex exclaims in bewilderment. The Commander holds one of his hands up into the air, and Alex automatically stops panicking. "Calm yourself Alex, I mean you no harm." Scrunching his eyebrows in suspicion, the boy tilts his head towards his left shoulder, having just noticed the wires attached to his body. "Oh yeah? Then explain these." "Do not worry, they will only harm you if you allow them to do so. I merely have a few questions to ask you. Please answer honestly, your lies cannot escape my S.E.N.S.E.S."

"What, are you some kind of living lie detector?" Alex questions. "Oh no no no no." Alpha smiles and shakes his head back and forth slowly. "S.E.N.S.E.S. means Sentient Electron and Neuron Stimulator Eradicates Secrecy. Simply put, if you lie to me, the wires attached to your body will deliver a short yet powerful jolt to your nervous system. Continue to lie, and your body will be put in a prolonged state of paralysis." Folding his arms behind his back, Alpha stares at the boy, waiting for his response. Not really having a choice in the matter, Alex releases a heavy sigh from his body and decides to just ride this ordeal out to the end. "Very well...Let us get this over with so I can go back to sleep."

"It's nice to know that you are willing to cooperate. Let us start off with something simple. How old are you?" "Eleven years old." Alex answers quickly. Nothing happens. "Ok, so far so good. Now, you certain that you know nothing about why Joe Dark hates you?" "I told you yesterday, I know NOTHING." Alpha waits a few seconds, thinking the machine might be having a delayed reaction, but the boy never gets shocked by it. "Well I'll be..." Alpha mumbles to himself. "Any other questions you want to toss at me?" The boy responds with arrogance "Why yes..." The Commander cracks his knuckles behind his back. The realistic sound of bones cracking is quite unsettling to Alex, as sweat starts to form on his forehead. "I've noticed something very interesting as you went about your journey Alex. Every time someone in your group brought up your parents, you always went silent and never answered their questions. Is it because your parents abuse you? Is it because they never spend enough time with you? Do they have a secret that makes you ashamed of them? Or maybe..." The Commander pulls his right hand out from behind his back and clenches it tightly into the shape of a fist. "They are already dead?"

"No!" Alex lashes his body out at Alpha, restrained only by the ropes tied around his arms and legs. "They are still alive!" At that moment, electricity coarsens through the wires and delivers a powerful electric shock to Alex's nervous system, just like Alpha said it would. As the boy remains helpless to defend himself, the Commander merely shakes his head, pitying the boy for attempting to lie to him. "Hmmm...The machine says otherwise." As the electricity dies down, smoke rises from Alex's singed body, and the boy takes deep breaths in an attempt to recover from such a painful experience. "I...am not...lying..." Alex says. It is easy to see that just one shock was too much for his poor young body to handle, but he keeps himself going through sheer force of will. But will that be enough to help him survive another one? The machine activates once again, and as more electricity burns through his nervous system, the boy screams out in pain. Alpha folds his right hand behind his back, angrily frowning at the fact that Alex is being so resilient. When the machine dies down, Alex's body looks horrible. Another shock could kill him, and he knows it. Yet he chooses not to yield. "WHY DO YOU CHOOSE TO RESIST?" Alpha yells out. "Would you rather die than tell the truth?"

"...Hufff...I have no reason to yield...because what I say...is...the truth..." The Commander clenches his fists tightly, at this point the pressure he is putting on the metal causes it to start becoming bent. Before the machine activates again, the copter's door is forced open by Mario, who happened to hear Alex's screams as he was walking by. Not wasting even a single second, the plumber leaps into the vehicle and rips the wires attached to Alex's body away before they shock him. "Mario?" Alpha says with a look of utter surprise on his face. After freeing the boy from the ropes, Mario stands up and turns his head to look at Alpha. A burning rage could be seen in his eyes, disgusted at what the Commander did to the boy. "What do you think you are doing Alpha?" Mario exclaims, fiercely pointing his left pointer finger at the angered Commander. "Don't you dare point a finger at me when you don't even know what happened here tonight!" Alpha accuses the plumber of falsely blaming him of any wrong doings, but the plumber merely holds his other hand out towards where Alex sits, pointing out the smoke that's still floating from his body.

"I hear screams of pain, find Alex strapped to a chair, see signs of electrocution, and you try to act innocent in the face of all of this evidence?" "Alex brought this upon himself Mario. He chose to resist telling the truth!" "The truth?" "Yes! The truth Mario! When I asked him if his parents were dead, he denied it, and said they were alive!" "Oh, WELL THAT MAKES EVERYTHING BETTER! Why would you need to know if his parents are alive or not anyways?" "You are a fool Mario! On the field of battle, those who choose to hide important information from their allies are lower than scum!" "And how is information on Alex's parents relevant at all?" "You can't figure that out yourself? Then let me spell it out for you! I'm trying to figure out the reason as to why Joe Dark targeted Alex myself!" "Why do you need to? He's dead!" "NO HE'S NOT!" Alpha's last comment forces Mario to finally become silent. The fury in his eyes vanishes, instead replaced by confusion. "What?" Is all the plumber can bring himself to say. "I didn't think it mattered that much at first when I saw his body moving in my Control Sphere, but I can sense the discord that looms in the air. Stars are vanishing from the night sky, the Star Spirits aren't talking to Geno, and the fact that Cackletta continues to be involved...I think that Joe Dark might be-"

"Alpha..." Alex weakly speaks, but it's enough to get the Commander's attention. Ending his argument with Mario immediately, Alpha looks at the boy, noticing that despite what he just went through, he has a smile on his face. "Mario...He warned me ahead of time about the consequences if I lied...Though it was wrong for him to kidnap me from the hospital and tie me to this machine...It was stupid of me to lie, knowing fully well that it would cause me pain...I guess I didn't want to reveal the truth about my parents because I thought it would make me...seem weak...But refusing to cope with the past...and look to the future makes me weaker than dirt..." After a quick breather, Alex continues to talk. "Mario, you can hate Alpha all you want for doing this to me...It will take me some time to forgive him as well, despite most of it being my fault in the first place...But we need to be able to work together...to conquer the last temple...As for my parents...I will tell everyone in our group the truth about them in the morning...For now…I need to rest..."

As Alex runs out of energy, his body falls out of the chair. He does not land on the ground though, for Alpha manages to catch him in the nick of time by stretching both of his arms out along the ground. Walking towards the chair, the Commander keeps the boy lifted into the air with one hand, while creating a needle on the tip of one of his fingers in the other. The needle is quickly poked into Alex's neck, and after injecting something into him he pulls it out and tosses the boy onto his shoulder. "I injected a serum into his body that will allow his nerves to recover quickly...I didn't intentionally put him in a situation where he would be harmed without preparing a healing serum beforehand. Like I've said before, I put everyone else's safety before my own..." Alpha walks out of his copter, heading towards the pipe that leads to Mario's house. The plumber, after being both disturbed and surprised by Alpha's actions, decides that it's for the best that he gets some rest himself, and follows the Commander as he treks through the moonlit streets of Toad Town...

The next day, everyone has gathered inside Mario's house to hear Alex's story. As the boy sits down on the brothers' couch with his elbows resting on the upper part of his legs and his hands folded together out in front of his face, the rest of the group can be seen sitting either on the remaining chairs in the living room or on the cold wooden floor. As they eagerly await the boy's tale, he raises his head to look towards them all. "I have gathered all of you today because I have kept something from all of you...It was foolish of me to do so, and it took a few thousand volts of electricity to enlighten me about what I need to do..." Tilting his head to the right, Driad has something to say to Alex. "Alex, can I say something before you begin?" After Alex nods his head, Driad returns his head back to it's normal position. "I would like to let you know, that no matter how bad this secret of yours is, we will still like you all the same." "Well thank you Driad." The boy replies with a smile, though he quickly reverts back to a straight face a few seconds later. "But this secret has nothing to do with me, exactly. It has to do with my parents..."

"Mario...I told you my parents were off on a vacation...That's not true. In fact, they haven't been alive for 5 years now..." The boy closes his eyes. Everything is quiet, until Mario speaks up for the entire group. "What happened to them?" He asks. "..." Alex stays silent, thinking to himself about how this past tragedy is a painful experience for him to go through again, but he knows that he has to get through this here and now. "I don't remember much, but I'll try my hardest to tell you the tale anyways..."

"When I was younger, me and my parents would always take trips through the countryside on Saturday nights...Usually we would go to the hills and gaze up at the stars, sometimes with my father getting into a counting contest with my mom to see just how many stars could be seen in the night sky. One day, I ended up falling asleep while we were stargazing. My mom carried me back to the car and tucked me into a nice warm blanket so I wouldn't catch a cold, and before she left she started the radio up...The song that was playing at the very moment was Mozart's 'Presto from the Divertimento in D Major'... I was asleep for only five minutes, when I was suddenly awoken by this loud explosive sound. Jerking my head up off the seat, I peered outside the back window...Only to find a massive blue fire had engulfed the hillside where my parents were standing before..."

"At the time, I was unable to comprehend what was going on...My heart raced, my mind couldn't think clearly...Until THEY showed up. Members from the FBI, a highly advanced and mysterious organization from my planet, arrived at the scene of the explosion. Freeing me from within the locked car, they took me into custody due to the fact that I was a witness to the events that had transpired on that hilltop tonight. I was knocked out, and awoke inside of their base two days later. The chief wanted me to explain the situation, but I knew nothing...It was then that an astrologist that worked for them came into the room and told the Chief about what hit the hilltop. It was a comet...Not just any comet though...It was Halley's Comet, the most well known comet on our world. The chief was baffled, I remember clearly. The comet should not have even come close to approaching the Earth for a long time...It was an unexplainable cosmic phenomenon...A phenomenon that took my parents away from me..."

"The FBI tried to find records on any living relatives of mine...As they tried their hardest, I sat by myself...At such a young age, I knew nothing about the meanings of either life nor death...I thought they had just vanished, and would eventually show up soon enough to save me...Five more days passed, and they never came...The FBI were unable to find anyone who was related to both my mom and my dad...In our world, we no longer allowed adoptions or slavery, so the only choice left was for me to live by myself, supervised by a few FBI agents who worked in that sector of America...With their funding, I was able to go to school, eat proper meals, and even be allowed to buy my own clothes...But it all felt so empty...It may have missed physically, but in a way that comet had killed a part of me that day...As months turned to years, I eventually just found ways to keep myself preoccupied...I was forced to grow up on my own in order to survive...And yet, deep down, there is a part of me that wishes to feel my mother's warm embrace once again..."

As Alex tells his tale, you can tell that it ends up becoming increasingly harder for him to speak clearly, and tears begin to well up in his eyes. When he finishes, he takes the hands of his that are folded in front of his face, covers his eyes up, and begins to sob quietly. A few people in the group are trying to hold the tears back in their eyes, but even they cannot help but cry after hearing Alex's sad tale. After a few moments of silence, Driad stands up and walks over to the boy. He holds his arms out, wrapping his vines slowly around Alex's body to give him a nice warm hug. He presses the side of his head down against Alex's arms, with his tear dripped eyes closed and a smile on his face. "I may not be a mother, and I probably can't act as a replacement for her...But does this feel good to you nonetheless, Alex?" Alex stops crying for a moment, and parts his hands to look at Driad's act of kindness. Not soon after, Mallow gets up and walks over to Alex, followed by Geno, Luigi, Gemini, Alpha, and finally Mario all hug Alex together. As they do this, he lets out a little sniffle, his heart warmed by what everyone is doing for him. "You guys..." Using a single finger to wipe away the tears that have built up in his eyes, a bright and cheerful smile appears on the boy's face. "Thank you...Thank you so much for doing this..."

Up in the Star Sanctuary, the Star Spirits are talking to the same blue silhouette that Peach was speaking to a few hours ago. "You are violating our agreement, space princess, by showing your face here today..." Eldstar says in a bitter tone. "Not only that, but you are plucking the stars out of space...You may rule over the cosmos in this part of the universe, but you have no right to defy the natural order!" "Are you done, Eldstar?" The princess speaks in a calm yet polite tone. "You know why I am here, you can sense it just as well as I can." "Yes...The day we wished would never come has arrived...The Dark King has been reborn..." Replies Skolar. "Yes. If the boy named Alex Whiter does not fulfill his destiny in time and destroy the reborn King, then I will have to interfere and finish him off myself. You noble Star Spirits must be prepared to take any necessary precautions in order to ensure the safety of the people on this world." "...Very well. From what I understand they shall be departing for the Origin Temple soon. They will have to deal with a few things before they can ascend to the top..." Eldstar closes his eyelids to think. "It's ok, Elder Star." The Princess speaks once again. A quick overview of space reveals a sparkly light blue orb flying towards Plit, inside of it is the shadow of an observatory. "I believe in Mario and his friends, for they have saved the universe and myself twice before..."

Next Time: Guardians of a Legacy